Spectator killed in Reno air races crash part of close-knit group of brothers

Sep. 17, 2011

Michael Wogan of Phoenix moves down the aisle in his wheelchair after receiving his diploma for an undergraduate degree in business and finance from ASU at Wells Fargo Are in Tempe on May 12, 2011. Michael died at the air show in Reno on Friday, September 16 when a plane crashed. Michael and two of his brothers have muscular dystrophy. / (Photo by David Wallace/ The Arizona Republic)

Written by

Jaimee Rose

The Arizona Republic

A CLOSER LOOK

How to help: Donations can be made to the Wogan family in the care of Anne Wogan by going to any Wells Fargo branch. To find a location near you, go to wellsfargo.com/locator/ and type in your ZIP code.

Other victims: Officials said Saturday that they weren’t releasing the names of nine people who died from the crash. The names will be complied by the Washoe County Medical Examiner’s Office and the Reno Police Department. Officials were working to identify the victims and notify their families. They also were trying to track down the whereabouts of anyone missing from the event.

Looking for information: A commanding officer of the Cascade Warbirds, an Oak Harbor, Wash., based nonprofit group that encourages the preservation and operation of World War II aircraft, said the plane that crashed at the National Championship Air Races on Friday hit “very close” to their box in the VIP seating area.Greg Anders, commanding officer of Squadron 2 of the Cascades Warbirds, said in a letter posted on the group’s website, that they are trying to account for all the members who were at the race.“The news does not sound good, and by the time this e-mail gets to you it may be confirmed, but we are working hard to unequivocally confirm potential losses prior to releasing names,” Anders wrote.Cascade Warbird member Dave Desmon was scratched and bruised in the incident and is accounting for all the Cascade Warbirds at the race, Anders wrote. According to a Cascade Warbirds newsletter, the group annually reserves two boxes at the Reno Air Races.

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PHOENIX — The four brothers leaned on one another, and sometimes it seemed like they leaned on Mikey more — the serious one who started his own company in high school, the brave one who wrote letters to ask for things they needed, like wheelchairs and scholarships and maybe baseball tickets — and the only one to graduate from college so far.

They yelled as loud as they could for him at Arizona State University’s commencement in May, which wasn’t very loud at all, but there he was: wheeling across that stage in a grin and a cap and gown, reminding the brothers that they can do hard things.

He was the third of four sons, and the number three meant a lot to this Phoenix area family: three wheelchairs, three big vans, three of the brothers with congenital muscular dystrophy. With those kinds of numbers, brothers are what you need.

The news came in a phone call Saturday at 1 a.m., but his brothers had been trying his cellphone for hours, all gathered at their mom’s house, unsure whether to worry or hope. “Everybody please pray,” the oldest wrote on Facebook. Their brother had been so excited before this trip.

Michael Wogan, 22, was among the nine people killed when the pilot of a 1940s-model P-51 Mustang crashed into the crowd Friday at the Reno National Championship Air Races. His father, Bill Wogan, was with his son, and lost his right eye, some of the fingers on his right hand, suffered over 100 fractures to his face, and was in critical condition at a Reno hospital.

The exact cause of Michael’s death has not been determined, said his mother, Anne Wogan, but Michael and his dad were seated in the VIP boxes, and up front, where wheelchairs go.

The brothers were born close — four boys in eight years — and kept each other closer: a procession of three wheelchairs at the movies or at school, with their fourth brother always nearby, helping, because going anywhere as a family was hard. The boys had the same surgeries and the same doctors and the same pain and the same 24-hour caretakers. They shared crushes and video games and ASU parking passes and friends, but their best friends were always one another.

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When you look different from most people in the world, it helps if you look like your brothers.“We just got each other,” says James Wogan, 19, the youngest. “We liked all the same things. We did everything together. He was my best friend.”

Michael liked for people to know his titles: “Magna cum laude” and “Chief Executive Officer — of myself,” he’d say proudly, or “Vice President, Arizona Helping Hands,” with which he ended each of his emails.He only let you call him “Mikey” if you knew him long enough to love him.

His brothers also called him “Lunchbox” and “Snack Shack” because their Mikey loved to eat — a sausage roll from Meatballz or a sandwich from Jimmy Johns. Sometimes, they called him “fat,” because he was the heaviest of the three special-needs brothers.Michael weighed 90 pounds.

Also, his brothers say, he was sarcastic and funny and he loved to quote lines from “I Love You, Man,” and he would never start a movie unless his brother James was ready to watch it, too. He shared everything he had — which most recently included Arizona Diamondbacks’ playoff tickets, for which he spent $2,500. That was enough to take one of his brothers and both of their 24-hour caretakers.

Michael liked it best when his brothers called him “The Boss,” because he owned his own web hosting company, had just started a social media marketing company, and had decided that “I Wanna be a Billionaire so Freakin’ Bad” was pretty much his theme song. He had his own custom tailor: Gus at Brothers Tailoring in Phoenix, who cut him a special suit after graduation — gray, with two matching shirts.

“Anything with class,” Michael told Gus on the day they went to pick it out.“He would have made it big,” his brother James said on Saturday, “but mostly he just wanted to be happy.”His mother wiped a tear away from James’ face. James can’t do that by himself.